House numbers dropped on Chapel Hill development site

A NATIONAL company has listened to residents’ concerns and reduced the number of houses it had planned for a Longridge site.

United Utilities is to remove ten properties proposed for the development off Chapel Hill after local owners objected that they were too close to their homes.

Longridge Town Council and 12 residents heard the decision to drop the number from 70 to 60 when the company’s planning manager for property services, Andrew Leyssens, spoke at last week’s council meeting.

The ten properties were planned for the northern boundary, next to existing houses and the conservation area around St Lawrence’s Church and the area known locally as Happy Alley.

Mr Leyssens confirmed to the council that the 30% of affordable housing already planned for the site would still be included in the 60, ensuring the company’s concern for ‘genuinely local people, those in the greatest need, young people and the elderly.’

“We will ensure strict criteria on design and how the site is developed in conjunction with government advisers, English Heritage,” said Mr Leyssens.

He also confirmed that residents’ mounting worries about the new development causing a major increase in traffic on an already busy road were being looked at. Traffic concerns had also been discussed with St Cecilia’s High School headteacher Steve Tattersall, and Mr Leyssens added that a transport assessment had been undertaken to monitor the sight lines on Chapel Hill’s corner, as they were currently obscured by an overgrown hedge and a tree.

He said the company continued to be sympathetic to residents’ concerns and would be discussing all the transport problems with highways officers from both Ribble Valley borough and Lancashire County councils.

The meeting with the council followed July’s public exhibition in Longridge by United Utilities and agents Lexington Communications on the Chapel Hill development. This will include the renovation of the former reservoir manager’s house, 53 Chapel Hill. and its barn.